A blog dealing with either the joy of cinema or the agony of cinema--nothing in between.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The House I Live In

"The House I Live In" is a famous public announcement from 1945 by director Mervyn LeRoy which was awarded a special Academy Award for its subject of tolerance. While taking a break from a recording session, Frank Sinatra runs across some neighborhood kids bullying a Jewish boy (whose ethnicity is never explicitly stated) and gives the ruffians a lecture and a song on religious equality. The short is surprisingly effective, well written and not as cloying as you'd expect. Sinatra is magnetic as well.